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Idris Elba: Cooking is my therapy

Idris Elba has revealed he likes to wind down by getting busy in the kitchen.

The star of Luther, Mandela and the upcoming No Good Deed features on the cover of the latest issue of Details magazine.

As well as taking part in a sexy photoshoot - posing with his bare torso on display, the 41-year-old British actor cooks his mother's recipe for groundnut soup for the magazine, at the recipe testing warehouse of his celeb pal Jamie Oliver.

Idris revealed: "I like to cook. I went to Trinity boys' school, Canning Town, East London, the edge of the industrial world. But we had this home economics class where you got tough lads like me and my mates learning how to cook, and I absolutely loved that."

He added: "Cooking and riding the bike, they're therapeutic: Both make you get out of your own head for a little while. It's a massive reset."

Idris also told the magazine how he views his DJing and music as the same as his acting work.

He said: "All these things I do come from the same place.

"When I'm rapping, it's kind of like this character that I put on. It's a character who can write songs and lyrics really easily, so therefore I can stand up and do it too. Acting is definitely jumping into someone's personality."

The Thor star struggled to get his big break in acting in the UK, appearing in soap Family Affairs in 1997. But he hit the big time after being cast as American drug dealer Stringer Bell in HBO series The Wire in 2002, and is now a huge Hollywood star.

He said: "I've been that guy for a while, where people recognise me but they're not sure why, I'd done a lot of popcorn films, but the reinvention came when I decided to do more of the character-driven stuff that won't be seen by as many people. But it makes people start to realise, 'Wait a second, this guy is that guy'."

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